cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Frequent Repeatable Broadband Drop Outs

swippyandzane
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎10-12-2015

Frequent Repeatable Broadband Drop Outs

Hey everyone.
Sorry if this has probably reared its head before, I've checked through this forum and various others but couldn't find something that relates to my long suffering problem - and this stems back all the way to my previous ISP which makes me think its a line fault... but wanted to check in to see if anyone had this problem too.
Basically - I was previously with Sky for many years and in the last few months of service with them I started to notice very short dropouts on our internet access - literally everything on WiFi or connected to the router directly would lose the internet for around 20-30 seconds and then would be fine again with no further intervention required. Depsite changing router and microfilter the problem just wouldn't go away. What was funny about this fault was that it happened around 2200-2230 at night - you could almost set your watch to it.
We made the move over to Plusnet a few months ago - I sort of hoped that the problem would disappear and it largely did... to the earlier time of 2130ish - still exactly the same faults and symptoms so it clearly wasn't a provider issue nor an issue with the original router hardware. We even got yoinked off the exchange for a week by some over-zealous engineer so it seems strange that despite that entire end to end change we're still having these issues.
More recently however I've come to realise (from working at home) that the fault actually happens several times throughout the day, and recently the evening outages, still at roughly the same times, have been more pronounced... lasting around 2minutes and sometimes not resolving without rebooting the router.
Has anyone experienced this before? Is it possibly the fault with the line that needs to be raised with Plusnet (our line rental is via them). Grateful for any advice or help anyone can give.
Cheers,
Swippy
8 REPLIES 8
rowley96
Dabbler
Posts: 11
Registered: ‎03-01-2011

Re: Frequent Repeatable Broadband Drop Outs

Sounds like the same issue/similar to what we are getting.  Been going on for 2 weeks now, though some days worse than others.
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,921
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Frequent Repeatable Broadband Drop Outs

Hi swippyandzane,
A warm welcome to the forums.
The issue you describe could be caused by a multitude of things so it would help if you could take a look at the speed issues thread (see below) and gather the information requested therein.
Also is the phone line noisy?  Dial 17070 option 2 using a corded phone plugged into the master socket.
Are there any extensions?  If yes, how are they wired?
Which router have you got?
@Rowley96,
A warm welcome to you too - can you do the same please, but answer in a new thread of your own.  We can then give each of you the assistance you need individually.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

swippyandzane
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎10-12-2015

Re: Frequent Repeatable Broadband Drop Outs

Hey Townman,
Thanks for the reply - in answer to your questions:
Sadly we don't have a corded phone (just a handsfree one) so I'm unable to properly test out the line... I'll have to see if I can borrow one from somewhere.
We have two phone sockets in our house, one near the front door and another right at the very back (which I assume is the extension). The extension is the one we're using - the other one is unused. It's been this way since we moved into the house a few years ago (2011) and I've not noticed this problem until the last 6-9 months.
My router is the following:

3 - Firmware version: 7.275.2_F2704N_Plusnet
4 - Board version: F@ST2704N
9 - Noise margin: 5.6/6.7
10 - Line attenuation: 22.3/39.0
Other information from the line test sites in the Speed Issues thread:
BT Speedtest
Download speedachieved during the test was - 7.96 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 4 Mbps-21 Mbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 9.24 Mbps
Upload speed achieved during the test was - 0.78Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 0.83 Mbps
Current line speed:
    9.1 Mb
Hope that helps - generally speed and connection are pretty solid apart from these blackout spots. My wife can happily skype away or stream from iPlayer while I'm gaming - it's only when we're backing up files to an online backup service (or I'm downloading from Steam) that we notice any sluggishness with our internet, despite the latter seemingly being throttled to just 1mb/s.
Many thanks,
Adam
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,921
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Frequent Repeatable Broadband Drop Outs

Hi Adam,
Thanks for the information, however to help know where to start, I need all of the router information please - particularly the synch speed.  It looks as though the synch speed is higher than what might be expected for a line of the reported attenuation.
The BT profile and the PlusNet current speed do not match up, suggesting that there has been a recent resynch at a higher speed.
Can you please take a look at the phone sockets.  Poor wire terminations can degrade over time.  Can you please confirm the following...
1. Which master socket is installed?  The master socket will be the one where the wire comes into the house
2. Does it have a removable lower faceplate?
3. How many wires are connected through to the extension and what colours are they?  More than 2 can be a problem, the 'wrong' colours can indicate the 'wrong' cable - hopefully they are colour+white-trace and white_colour-trace.
4. Check the same on the extension - also make sure that this is not also a master socket (no big capacitor on it) see the bottom of this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_telephone_sockets
5. Test the line with a cordless phone if you do not have a corded one
Where is the telephone plugged into the phone line?

@CRT,
Can you please post a VR plot?
Kevin

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Chris
Legend
Posts: 17,724
Thanks: 600
Fixes: 169
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Frequent Repeatable Broadband Drop Outs

Looking at the RADIUS logs there are disconnections at very similar times most nights. Can you think of anything that happens around that time? Heating, security lights, christmas tree lights?
Speed:
Up 1144
Down 10563
SNR 6.8
WBC 160K - 24M No delay (INP 0) 6dB Downstream, UC No delay (INP 0) 6dB Upstream (ADSL2+)
Former Plusnet Staff member. Posts after 31st Jan 2020 are not on behalf of Plusnet.
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,921
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Frequent Repeatable Broadband Drop Outs

@Chris,
Thanks, as they say - a picture paints a thousand words...
@Adam,
We are looking for something switching at a near regular time.  If you want to watch this closely for yourself, installing and configuring routerstats (as per the links below) might be helpful in clearly identifying when the problem occurs.
Kevin

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

swippyandzane
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎10-12-2015

Re: Frequent Repeatable Broadband Drop Outs

Hello Townman and Chris - thanks so much for the replies on this one. Apologies for the delayed response.
That picture is very interesting and certainly backs up what we're experiencing at home. I tried installing routerstats but sadly it doesn't seem to want to play ball with my Sagecom F@AST 2704N.
Rather annoyingly I can't think of anything in the house that switches on at such a repeated time. Heating comes on and off well outside of that timeframe and this issue preceeds anything like Christmas lights.Now we do have security lights (two of them) very close to the socket we're using but I can't say I've noticed any obvious correlation regarding these coming on/off and interfering... in fact given I trigger them when doing the bins and my wife is normally browsing the web I guess it's safe to say that they probably aren't the cause. Could possible interference extend beyond my household? Is it worth changing the channel my WiFi is set to (albeit that's currently set to Auto) to see if that removes any conflicts?
As for the previous questions - I'm afraid I'm a bit stuck on some of those but hopefully the following information helps:
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps): 1127
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps): 10375
ShowtimeStart (seconds) 987
1 - Product name: Plusnet Router
2 - Serial number: N7150781B003988
3 - Firmware version: 7.275.2_F2704N_Plusnet
4 - Board version: F@ST2704N
5 - Mode ADSL
6 - Uptime: 0 days 00:14:03
7 - Data rate: 1127/10375
8 - Maximum data rate: 1128/10524
9 - Noise margin: 5.9/6.1
10 - Line attenuation: 22.3/39.0
12 - Data sent/received: 1.4M/8.5M
WiFi Channel is set to auto.
As for the socket information:

1. Which master socket is installed?  The master socket will be the one where the wire comes into the house
The master socket is at the front of the house (BT OpenReach branded) - but we're using one at the back of the house which I presume is the extension.
2. Does it have a removable lower faceplate?
The unused one at the front of our house (BT OpenReach) does. The back one only has the option to remove the entire plate (looks like the BT Master Socket front LJ 2/1A from the pictures in the link you posted), this is the one we've had our phone and router connected to since 2011 (with no incident up until this year).
3. How many wires are connected through to the extension and what colours are they?  More than 2 can be a problem, the 'wrong' colours can indicate the 'wrong' cable - hopefully they are colour+white-trace and white_colour-trace.
Sorry - not sure how to check this - if it's a case of removing the faceplate then I'll have to shift some furniture around - that's a job for next weekend if so Smiley
4. Check the same on the extension - also make sure that this is not also a master socket (no big capacitor on it) see the bottom of this - https://en.wikipedia.org/...British_telephone_sockets
I'll have to double check this one out at the same time as checking the wiring.
5. Test the line with a cordless phone if you do not have a corded one
I did a quick check on the line, it doesn't sound great but I honestly can't rule out the phone being the fault there. It's an old handset that we've had for years and probably should have replaced it some time ago. It's always sounded that way to me. I'll have to look into getting an alternative to replace it.
Many thanks for both your help on this one, it's very much appreciated.
Cheers,
Swippy
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,921
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Frequent Repeatable Broadband Drop Outs

Hi Swippy,
Sigh!  The 2704n is not friendly when it comes to wanting diagnostics.  It seems that someone designed it to be unhelpful.  One suspects a BT hand in its design so that users cannot profile line quality issues.  Wink Sad
What is the other router?  Will that 'play ball' with router stats?
Having reread the OP what you describe and the VR plot clearly point to a spike interference issue which is enough to cause your line to loose synch.  Re synching can take 2-3 minutes.  The cause could well be outside of your home.  I once had a similar issue with passing electric trains - I was 150 yards away from the WCML - passing SUPER pendelinos could produce -3dB to -5dB spikes which could take out my connection.  Months of repeated BTOR visits eventually found a d-side pair less susceptible to the issue.
Tracking this down is likely to be a challenge!

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.